Monday, October 26, 2009

I've recently started using Delicious for bookmarking - and I don't know why I wasn't doing it earlier. Here's a quick rundown on social bookmarking using Delicious if you are interested in using it.
Delicious is a social bookmarking website, which means it is designed to allow you to store and share bookmarks on the web, instead of inside your browser. This has several advantages.

First, you can get to your bookmarks from anywhere, no matter whether you're at home, at work, in a library, or on a friend's computer.

Second, you can share your bookmarks publicly, so your friends, coworkers, and other people can view them for reference, amusement, collaboration, or anything else. (Note that you can also mark bookmarks on Delicious as private – only viewable by you – if you like.)

Third, you can find other people on Delicious who have interesting bookmarks and add their links to your own collection. Everyone on Delicious chooses to save their bookmarks for a reason. You have access to the links that everyone wants to remember. You can see whether two people have chosen to remember a link, or whether it was useful enough for a thousand people to remember – which may help you find things that are useful for you, too.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Just read this in Nett Magazines Blog:
Burn-out is an all too common occurrence these days. With the global financial crisis receding but still looming menacingly in the background, people are working harder than ever before, and it's taking its toll.
It's possible to work too hard. Though the sting of the global financial crisis has receded somewhat, some of its after effects are lingering. People are still working harder than they want to, and it's taking its toll. Read More...

Every seven years, designer Stefan Sagmeister closes his New York studio for a yearlong sabbatical to rejuvenate and refresh their creative outlook. He explains in this video:

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

I have spent today learning Camtasia, a brilliant software program for creating training videos. While the product itself is not tricky to learn, I have to say I am finding it a challenge to create even a small video that has both the actions and narration properly timed - and while I spend a lot of time in front of a class and using an overhead connected to a computer, I am ashamed to say how long it has taken me to create one small instructional video on using Word synonyms! Ah well, I guess it is all a learning experience - I may even invite ridicule and put my first effort up here - I'm thinking about it!!!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Google has long ruled supreme in the world of internet search and has become so much a part of our daily lives has that we no longer 'search' for things, we 'Google' for them. However there is a new kid block. In June this year, Microsoft released their new search engine known as Bing. It is a different interface in terms of presentation: where Google is the straight-forward predominantly white and plain window, Bing (www.bing.com) provides a different picture daily, cycling through beautifully photographed and extremely vivid shots of natural scenes. In addition to the eye-catching colours, you can also mouse over points in picture to get facts based on the photo itself. But it isnt about who looks prettier, it is about who provides the better search result. There are many articles on comparison and if you would like to read about some of the differences from a more technical point of view try doing an Internet search for Google versus Bing, or try this article as a startpoint.

My personal choice is to stay with Google, as I feel Microsoft has enough of a monopoly on what we all do online.

My personal choice is to stay with Google, as I feel Microsoft has enough of a monopoly on what we all do online.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

This afternoon I set up a Facebook page for my business, Angela Lewis Consulting, so feeling pretty pleased with myself. The tools are available to link blog posts to Facebook and then to use Facebook to update to Twitter, the whole thing is almost mindblowing. It reminds of something I read about change saturation, when there is so much change that a person becomes almost numbed and can't deal with any of it. While all this Web 2.0 stuff is not mind numbing, it is still a lot to think about and work with - along with the core of actually your own job, in my case training and keeping on top of being self employed. Anyway, I have a twitter account now as well, but you know what, as I am typing change saturation must have taken over, as I cannot remember it, so will post next time around!! One thing that I found invaluable in terms of the Facebook for Business seminar I attended, was (not only the tip about having a business page as well as a profile page), that people should grab their username (i.e. vanity url) before these get taken in the same way that domain names got snatched up. I have mine now- Angela Lewis Consulting Pty. Ltd - so I'm happy about that. Saturday night - time for a glass of wine!

Friday, October 16, 2009

I added Google Analytics to my blog, so that I could easily see how many times my various posts are being read by visitors. It is a terrific tool and very easy to set up. Rather than re-write the instructions, here they are step by step from eHow.com:

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Today I attended a webinar hosted by Nett Magazine on using Facebook for business. Suzy Dafnis from Australian Businesswomen's Network - Australian Businesswomen's Network was one of the speakers and she gave us lots to think about. Her organisation began by using a normal profile on Facebook and then moved to the creation of a page, which is the business version of a personal profile page. She suggested that for some people who do not have a business webpage, that it could be viable way of having a no-cost business profile and for those with blogs and webpages, a Facebook page is a another way of tapping into customer bases and clients. An added bonus (for me) was in learning about the existence of the Aust Businesswomen's Network, who have a lot to offer.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

One of my older friends sent me a clipping from The Senior News about the Federal Government's $15 million Broadband for Seniors initiative. The accompanying picture shows an 86 year old turoring a lady of 102 on how to use the Internet - how fabulous is that! Partners in this initiative are NEC, U3A and Adult Learning Australia. Broadband for Seniors.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

My homework today is getting my head around Microsoft Windows 7. One of my largest clients will roll this out starting in November and we will be training around 800 users in how to use both Windows 7 and Office 2007.

To get me in the mood I watched some YouTube videos- two of which were:

I enjoyed playing with the program (particularly the new Aero Peek function which foregrounds a document or file when you float the mouse on it, so you can 'peek' at it without actually making it active); and I have to agree with all the blog chat on the topic, it is has the Mac flavour, particularly the taskbar (or megabar as some call it). Users will enjoy simplicity of the search button and the intuitive way that searching now occurs - it is a bit like Google, in that it begins searching as soon as you start typing. Greg Shultz blogging at TechRepublic explores the Win7 Taskbar in this short post.

Oh - and while not necessary to the computing experience, the new backgrounds are fabulous!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Trendwatch reports on global consumer trends. In their latest briefing, they discuss the concept of reviewing as the new advertising, quoting the latest Nielsen research:

Recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally. The Nielsen survey shows that 90% of online consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions posted online.

All good news for social media such as Twitter, but I'd probably want to know from what knowledge base the posts or tweets emanate and how relevant these opinions ares to me, before I rushed out and bought a DVD player based on online chatter.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

I've just signed on for what is termed a 'lunch and learn' webinar on using Facebook for Business. This time I am going to make a conscious effort to focus and remain present for the duration of the webinar...because I have to confess I have trouble staying in the webinar moment. Take the last one I attended: it was again during lunch so while the webinar ran: I ate my lunch (as you do), flipped to email each time it pinged, had a brief conversation with a colleague when he dropped into my office and answered a text. Yet when I am giving a face to face class I don't like it (and have something to say-politely of course!), if participants are emailing, twittering, facebooking or texting.

Some people might just write multi-tasking off as the curse of this century and accept it as the way of the world - while others (like me), require that learners are actively present in the moment so that learning and engagement can occur (says the pot calling the kettle black). While all the organisations I work with in fact ban Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and IM, this just leaves texts, mobiles and email to impinge on in-house workshops and meetings, whereas students with their own laptops are mostly free to indulge in social networking in the learnng space.

...I want my students to learn that attention is a skill that must be learned, shaped, practiced; this skill must evolve if we are to evolve. The technological extension of our minds and brains by chips and nets has granted great power to billions of people, but even in the early years of always-on, it is clear to even technology enthusiasts like me that this power will certainly mislead, mesmerize and distract those who haven't learned - were never taught - how to exert some degree of mental control over our use of laptop, handheld, earbudded media.

To which I say Hallelujah!

Is there such a thing as multi-tasking? I don't think so - to me it is just a way of masking the switch of attention from one thing to another. If you are reading a text you cannot possibly be fully listening to the person talking to you, what you are doing is a bit of reading then a bit of listening, then a bit of reading and constantly playing catch-up between the two - what's effective about that? I say call it what it is - attention switching and accept it means that the person supposedly multi-tasking is not paying full attention to any one of the things he or she is currently juggling at the same time.

Note to self: make a point of re-reading this before attending the next webinar.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Well, I have The Definitive Guide to Camtasia Studio 6 sitting in front of me, to get ready for creating my own online training videos. One of my clients will be rolling out some software nationally next year and logistics mean that it is not economically feasible to send trainers to all remote sites. Our plan is to record training sessions with the Camtasia, product, which allows screen capture and narration, so the viewer experiences the training being delivered to them as it would be if the trainer was using an overhead. I'm excited!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

A quickpoll I did a few days ago at Smart Planet showed probably unsurprising results:

Phone, e-mail and instant messaging. 50.2%

Face-to-face. 36.3%

Video conferencing. 7.4%

Online collaboration tools (cloud apps; wikis; dropboxes). 6.0%

I know I should pick up the phone more often than I do, but I guess like most people I find more expedient to dash off a quick message. One company I work for has put in Microsoft Communicator, complete with webcams and voice, but my observation is that the users choose the IM facility above the other ways of communicating. I think IM and email is so popular because people are excused from social chit chat and niceties and are able to communicate what they need and move on.

Friday, September 25, 2009

In Pedophiles trawling social networking sites for details posted by parents, Melbourne newspaper The Herald Sun today warns proud parents who post photos and personal information about their childen on Facebook may be inadvertedly attracting sex offenders. It goes on to say that as some parents are not as technologically adept as they could be, they may be putting their kids at risk by not correctly setting security and access measures in sites such as Facebook to confine viewing to friends and family; resulting in photos and information about their children becomes generally accessible.

Teenagers and young adults also love Facebook, MySpace, texting and IM and if WU, PLOX and PAW don't mean much to you and you have teenagers in your house, they probably should , because it is common for them to use slang and acronyms—whether they're trying to disguise their actions or just trying to save a few keystrokes—leaving many parents firmly ITD (in the dark).

The easiest way to stay ITK (in the know) about what your kids are doing online is to learn their language. Reading your child's instant messenger logs or checking their MySpace or Facebook posts won't be very helpful if you can't understand what they're talking about.

About Me

I am an IT consultant with a PhD in Education. In this blog I address a variety of topics and trends related to my interest in IT, learning, e-learning, social media, the intersections of society and technology, change management and green computing.